Why Those Fake-Poetry Subway Ads Are So Annoying

If you live in a major American city and ride the subway, once in a while you’ll see a poem, often accompanied by some pretty art, where an advertisement would normally be. That’s because since 1992 the Poetry Society of America has bought ad space on subways and given it over to poetry for its “Poetry in Motion” program, touted on the organization’s website as “one of the most popular public literary programs in American history.” In New York, the poets featured have ranged from literary household names like Emily Dickinson to William Carlos Williams to lesser-known-to-most figures like Lady Otomo No Sakanoe.

Last year, the company PolicyGenius — “Comparing Insurance Quotes Made Simple” — decided to spoof Poetry in Motion by placing ads that are laid out similarly at first glance, but which, upon sucking the reader in to believing they are reading a real poem, eventually reveal themselves to be, well, ads for an insurance company. For example:

Blackberries

Fresh milk

All these things

are talked about

in other subway poems.

So

we included them

in this one

We have the space

All we need to say

is that we make it easy

to compare life insurance online.

This idea was well received by some people, apparently. Late last year it won something called the “US Creative Work of the Week,” as voted on by readers of the advertising publication the Drum.

But on the other hand: These ads are terrible and a lot of people hate them. I’m one of them. Every time I see one of these ads my eyebrows arch and I get mad and my mood dips several points. I’m not alone:

i don't like the MTA's subway poems much at all but when i see these ads i go into a rage blackout. the admittedly stupid last bastion of a civic culture of arts being eaten away by winkingly cynical marketers. it sucks! https://t.co/kwkPNMPd7g

This came up at a birthday party I attended at a bar recently: Both the person sitting across from me and the one to my right suddenly tensed up and got mad when it did. “I feel like I just want to file a cease and desist order,” said the person to my right. I did not know either of these people well, but both seemed like relaxed, easygoing individuals, and both became measurably less relaxed and easygoing as soon as the Policygenius ads came up.

Why are these ads inciting, in some people, such a visceral reaction? A pseudopsychological theory: The nice thing about the Poetry in Motion campaign is that the ads offer a brief, meaningful respite from the frequently unpleasant experience of riding the subway. When your eyes fall upon one of the poems, whether or not it’s good — and plenty of them aren’t — your stress level falls just a little bit. The experience of reading a poem is basically the opposite of the experience of riding a crowded New York subway. No one’s trying to sell you anything or invade your personal space: You’re just. Reading. A. Poem.

By the time the PolicyGenius ads rolled out, we subway riders had all been conditioned to associate ads that look a certain way with this experience: “Oh, it’s some poetry — I’m going to ignore the guy puking at the other end of the car and the fact that we’ve been stalled in a tunnel under the East River for 20 minutes and just enjoy some Emily Dickinson.” But in this case … Nope. It’s just someone trying to sell you something. Again. Is the puke dribbling closer to your feet? What’s that smell? Just how sturdy are these river-tunnels, anyway?

This isn’t all PolicyGenius’s fault. This phenomenon, in New York at least, is inextricably linked to the decline of a subway system that, at this point, basically feels like a bunch of pockmarked Yugoslavian shipping containers held together by Scotch tape and debt. The ads would probably be way less annoying on a Scandinavian subway system. But still: PolicyGenius is forging an association between its own name and the sensation of being robbed of a peaceful, pleasant moment during what is often the worst part of one’s day. That doesn’t seem like a good ad strategy.

#BREAKING: I’m told the entire @BPDAlerts Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team, a total of 57 officers, as a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT. @news4buffalo

In case you were wondering about the unmarked federal agents dotting Washington

Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency.

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).